New Swiss-domiciled Top Crystal Fund's defensive stance played out well

Newly-launched Swiss-domiciled Top Crystal Fund reported a negative 0.17% growth in January, three months after its inception in October ’09. Contrary to market expectations, the latest fund report said, January-10 turned out to be a turbulent month in which Eurostoxx 50 was down 6.8% and the S&P down 3.8%.

The fund’s CIO Gianrito Nicodemo said the firm decided to play defensively at the start of 2010, which saved the firm from possible greater losses. He said that the market sentiment remained “excessively optimistic,” although the macro picture is still uncertain: “The result was a chunky correction; the dollar continues to strengthen and hit 1.35 against the euro, and gold continues to weaken and fell to $1050 which is a 61.8% retracement from its recent highs, and sits on its long-­-term support levels.”

Top Crystal was up 0.1% in December ’09, compared with the +2.16% return recorded by the Hennessee Long/Short Equity Index that same month.

Gianrito told investors in his January letter that the rosy macro and corporate figures recorded in the second half of 2009 would continue through the first half of 2010 and even beat “already strong estimates,” before slowing through the rest of the year.

Top Crystal fund also posted an initial negative result as it closed November down 0.1%. Gianri......................